Golden Pair Phenomenon
by Hopeakaarme
Summary: There are new pairs playing at the street courts. There are different theories for exactly why they are good. Not everyone agrees with each theory. Shounenai AraIkeda, mentioned shounenai Silver Pair, Golden Pair, AkuDan


Disclaimer: I own very little.

A/N: For a challenge community at LJ that soon went down. At least I enjoyed it for the little while it lasted.

So my muse sat on me as soon as I decided to write it and told me, "Put Shishido in it. It doesn't matter how, just include Shishido." Which is strange because I never write Shishido but hey, I'm a slave to my muses. So, (horrid) Shishido's what you get. And Arai/Ikeda.

* * *

Golden Pair Phenomenon

* * *

Of course, they didn't usually go to the street courts, not here at least. This was for doubles, and they didn't usually play doubles, but… well, lately they had been training doubles, and Seigaku would need a new doubles team or two when the third-years retired, and it was best to start early if they wanted to make it to the new regular team. Three of the spots were already obviously reserved, so there were only five left for people to fight over. And Arai and Ikeda were determined to be among those five, even if it meant learning doubles.

They were doing fairly well, too. Apparently the Golden Pair phenomenon wasn't just a myth after all, although it did make them wonder about Kaidou.

Either way, off to the street courts they were, finding a lot of people there as usual. One in particular stood out in their eyes. What was Hyoutei's Shishido doing here, on the plebeian street courts, and especially without his usual partner? He wasn't like Eiji-senpai, after all, he couldn't play doubles alone.

Neither of them thought to question Shishido, of course. He wasn't exactly known as the most friendly of guys. However, as it turned out, it was the Hyoutei player who talked to them first, looking a bit surprised as he saw them at the courts.

"Huh?" Shishido raised an eyebrow. "What the fuck are you two doing here? I thought guys from your school never came here."

"What do you mean?" Arai asked, a bit confused and a tad irritated as well at the somewhat hostile greeting. Well, more than just a tad, really. "Seigaku players come here all the time!" What they did, and not only Momo, either.

"Huh? Seigaku?" The shorter boy raised an eyebrow, looking at him from head to toe. "I thought you were from Yamabuki."

"Huh?" Arai took a step backwards, staring at the Hyoutei player. Sure, he wasn't the most known of Seigaku members, being a non-regular as of yet, mostly ignored by members of other schools in fact, but… if he wasn't associated with Seigaku, then why the Hell Yamabuki?

He asked as much. This, however, merely made Shishido roll his eyes.

"How the fuck should I remember every loser that walks around here?" snapped Shishido. "I just remembered Choutarou saying something about meeting a fuzzy brat with a green headband who was going on about how great and invincible Yamabuki is and whatnot."

"You mean Dan-kun, then." Ikeda nodded. He wasn't as easily fazed as Arai. "Well, he's about this tall –" he demonstrated with his hand, "– and looks kind of like Echizen. Well, a whole lot. I suppose you know what Echizen looks like, at least?"

"Well, I'm not an idiot or something." Shishido snorted. "Looks like Echizen, eh? Too bad he doesn't play like him, too, or they might actually have a chance."

"Well," snapped Arai, "it's not like you have an Echizen, either. Which is painfully obvious in the way you just keep losing to us."

"Oi, shut your trap." Shishido took a step closer. "If you wanna fight…"

"Hey, hey, now," Ikeda tried to calm them, holding Arai back. "Don't start that, just –" As the other two kept exchanging insults, he glanced around, desperate for some distraction.

Fortunately, some presented itself in the form of a curious-looking little boy, shorter than anybody else at the courts, coming to sight with another boy who was as tall as the first one was short. While the first one mostly resembled an overly eager puppy, the other gave off a serious aura of do-not-fuck-with me that would have been impossible to ignore. It wasn't hard to guess just who these two were.

"Hey, see, Shishido-san?" Ikeda pointed at the hyper boy, hoping to distract the two boys. "That's Dan-kun. And Akutsu next to him. They're from Yamabuki, not us."

Shishido rolled his eyes. "I do know Akutsu at least. Like I give a fuck either way."

"Hey, this looks fun desu!" they heard Dan's enthusiastic voice. "Can we play for a bit, Akutsu-senpai? Please desu?"

Akutsu snorted, glancing around with the air of someone who could have beaten – in tennis or otherwise – everybody present and knew it very well. "Why the fuck not?" he asked. "It's not like there's anything else to do around here."

"The Hell?" Arai blurted, his eyes wide. "Can Akutsu even play doubles?" He took a few steps away from the tall boy's direction – subconsciously, or at least he would never admit otherwise. He remembered all too well his previous encounter with the violent Yamabukian and did not want a repeat of it.

Ikeda, it seemed, was equally not eager to see the encounter to repeat itself, given the way he positioned himself between Arai and Akutsu's general direction. "Well, he's good enough that he can probably beat most doubles pairs here even alone, with Dan-kun just watching from the sidelines," he pointed out. "I doubt they can actually pull off any real doubles. Not like," he smiled briefly at Arai, "not like us."

"Like you? Don't make me laugh." Shishido smirked. "Everyone knows Seigaku only has one or maybe two proper doubles teams. You losers can't even make it to the regulars; how the fuck could you be good enough to actually play decent doubles?"

"Not our fault if Seigaku has more competent players than regular spots," growled Arai, again almost ready to attack the shorter boy. "And I didn't see you and your stupid partner being mentioned in the Pro Tennis Monthly. Sorry to say, but it was our Golden Pair there."

"Indeed, Golden Pair – the only real doubles team you have." Shishido grimaced. "What's that shit about the Golden Pair phenomenon anyway? Like emotional attachment has a fuck to do with how you play."

"Well, it works for them, in that they're Japan's number one middle school doubles team now. And it works for Kaidou and Momoshiro, too," Ikeda said.

"Whuh? Momo?" Arai looked fairly startled. "I always thought it was Inui-senpai for Kaidou!"

"So one of your main doubles players is a whore. Big deal. Doesn't make your doubles skills suck any less."

"Hey, now!" Arai seethed. Okay, so perhaps Kaidou wasn't his most favourite person ever, but Kaidou was a regular, and a team mate, and most likely his future captain or vice-captain, and the only ones allowed to make fun of him were Momo and perhaps Eiji-senpai. "If you don't stop that fuck at once –"

"Um, guys?" Ikeda said. "Akutsu and Dan-kun are playing."

The two turned to look at the court where, indeed, a game was going on. Akutsu and Dan seemed awfully mismatched with their obvious physical differences. At a first glance it seemed apparent they could do nothing about the more experienced doubles team against them.

The boys gave it another glance. And a third. And a fourth for a good measure, too.

"What. The. Fuck." Shishido summed all of their feelings quite accurately.

"Indeed." Ikeda nodded mournfully.

"Akutsu threw him up in the air to smash the ball. Threw him. And he was expecting it." Arai shook his head slowly. "That'd better be the Golden Pair phenomenon, because otherwise I really don't want to know how they train at Yamabuki."

"It can't be the fucking Golden Pair phenomenon. Akutsu doesn't have a fucking heart." Shishido, too, shook his head. "Of course, everyone finds this a bloody proof he does. At this rate nobody'll ever again think you can play good doubles just with hard work without bloody dating."

"You mean you and Ohtori aren't dating?" asked Ikeda. He sounded honestly surprised.

There was just the slightest of hints of red on Shishido's cheeks. "Choutarou has nothing to do with this, so leave him the fuck out."

"You're just bitter because the phenomenon's named after our star couple." Arai watched as Dan suddenly bounced to sight from behind Akutsu's back, surprising their opponents. "…Though I agree, in Akutsu's case it's just a fluke."

"Is that why you think you're good at doubles?" asked Shishido, sneering. "Just because you're seeing each other?"

"Well…" Somehow, Ikeda found his hand searching Arai's. Their fingers met, grasped, and held. "We just call it like we see it."

For a while, Shishido stared at them, then muttered a curse and marched off. On the court, Akutsu scored another point, Dan eagerly cheering him on.

Neither Arai nor Ikeda seemed about to let go.


End file.
